A pair of basset hounds named Allie and 'Bama were reunited with their owners, Brenda Travis and Tom Shields, on July 14, more than five years after the dogs disappeared.

The hounds were stolen from the couple’s Murfreesboro, Tenn., home, and although Travis and Shields searched for months, they were unable to find any trace of their pets. They didn’t expect to ever see them again.

"We would look in neighborhoods and just drive around. We drove around for months just looking," Travis told KSDK-TV.

But a few weeks ago the couple, who now live in Wichita, Kan., got a call from kennel technician Becky Davis of the Paulding County Animal Shelter in Georgia. She told Travis that the dogs had been found in the parking lot of a Dallas, Ga., tractor supply store on July 5.

Shelter workers used a microchip detector on the dogs and found that one of them had a chip with three phone numbers. Davis tried the first two numbers, but they were no longer in service. The third number rang Travis’ phone.